NEW YORK, 3 February 2004 — The Montreal Canadiens’ Patrice Brisebois opened the scoring just 43 seconds into the game to ruin Brian Sutter’s 1,000th game as a coach as the Canadiens romped to a 6-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.

The Blackhawks lost for the 19th time in their last 21 road games (1-19-0-1). Their only win was at Calgary on Friday.

Sheldon Souray, Jan Bulis, Steve Begin, Mike Ribeiro and Niklas Sundstrom also scored for the Canadiens, who led 5-1 after two periods.

Sundstrom’s goal came in the last minute into an empty net, with Brisebois collecting the assist. Steve Sullivan scored twice for Chicago with Kyle Calder and Alexei Zhamnov adding the other two goals.

The game was Blackhawks’ coach Sutter’s 1,000th game behind the bench, making him just the 10th NHL coach to attain the mark. He also played 779 times for the St. Louis Blues, who retired his number 11 in 1988.

In Boston, Glen Murray scored a hat trick in the final 14 minutes to lead the Bruins to a 4-1 win over Pittsburgh, who suffered their 10th straight loss. The losing streak is just one short of the Penguins’ franchise record, set in 1982-83. It was Boston’s third straight win and moved the Bruins to within a point of the idle Ottawa Senators.

Murray’s third goal, his 21st of the season, was into an empty net with a minute remaining before Brian Rolston added a second empty netter with 23 seconds left to play.

Aleksey Morozov scored the Penguins’ only goal. It was a good start to the day for New England-area fans, with the Patriots defeated Carolina Panthers in the NFL’s Super Bowl XXXVIII on Sunday.

In Calgary, Chris Clark scored twice while Craig Conroy, Martin Gelinas, Shean Donovan and Dean McAmmond also scored in a 6-4 win over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Sergei Fedorov scored once and assisted on Anaheim’s three other goals.

Toronto’s Nolan Returns After Eye Surgery

In Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s Owen Nolan, who underwent laser eye surgery earlier this month, returned to the Toronto Maple Leafs lineup.

Nolan, who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was clipped near the eye by a high stick from defenseman Jay McKee in a 3-3 tie with the Buffalo Sabres on Jan. 3.

He underwent surgery two days later to repair a detached retina and missed 13 games. The 31-year-old was second on the team in scoring at the time of the injury with nine goals and 19 assists in 38 games.

Toronto had seven wins and five losses without Nolan and has a one-point lead in the Northeast Division heading into Saturday’s showdown with second-place Ottawa.